This time of year, I sometimes wake up to the sound of people arguing loudly in a hot air balloon just above my house. 

Not really.

After a few minutes, I figure what I’m actually hearing: a flock of Canada geese. My house is right on their migratory route, and hundreds of flocks fly past us, honking and yawping at each other to stay in touch. They fly thousands of miles every year. We should all be so good at navigating the world. 

In a way, we can be. But only by tuning in very, very closely to what we Wayfinder coaches [...]

When I was a child, I loved the holidays for the stuff—candy, cookies, advent calendars, and, of course, presents. As a young adult, I wanted perfect situations: everyone feeling good, looking good, doing good deeds. This got so stressful that by midlife, I decided that I’d just focus on finding peace. I called it going Home for the holidays—not home as in a geographic location, but my real Home: a state of calm, relaxed being.

I didn’t expect much from this new practice of Homing, just a little stress relief. But it turned out I’d stumbled into some real holiday magic. [...]

I was lying on the floor with my eyes closed, diligently practicing a yoga posture called shivasana (“corpse pose”). Some say that this is the hardest to master, but I thought I was doing pretty well. Not to boast, but yoga teachers often take me for dead no matter what pose I’m attempting.

Anyway, as I lay there a random idea came to me. “How strange,” I thought, “that this body had three children.” Then I realized that it actually hadn’t. Since all our atoms are replaced every seven years, not an atom of the body I have now was present when [...]

“I’m sick of people telling me I’m going to save the world,” said my friend Eliza over coffee. “I know they mean it as a compliment, but it feels like one hell of a burden.” A charismatic activist, thought-leader, and author, Eliza (not her real name) gives people hope and confidence when both are in short supply. No matter what horrific mass shooting or eco-crisis comes up on the news, Eliza finds a way to help people believe everything will be okay. Her energy seems boundless. It isn’t.

“I’m just so tired,” she told me. “I’ve been doing so much [...]

Right now, I’m beginning—all right, planning to begin—several new projects. I’m going to launch a new fitness routine, declutter my closets, and start working with a new editor on my current book. It’s all hugely exciting, and I’m feeling so… stuck.

I don’t mean literally, of course. I’m physically free to start any of these projects at almost any moment. But my mind has been working overtime to convince me otherwise. I keep getting bogged down in what internet guru Zefrank calls “the terrible space between zero and one.” I know I want to do some awesome things—I can almost [...]